Today’s community lunch was mac and cheese with cut up hotdogs from a lunch earlier this week. It wasn’t fancy, and I spread margarine on slices of bread as a side dish to make it go farther. (The flies do not fight for the margarine, by the way. What does that tell you?)

As is the case with all of us humans, the folks in our community have good days and bad. Cheerful days and depressed ones. But the emotional up and downswings caused by relational conflicts or life disappointments are magnified by the struggles of living outside in the sweaty heat, freezing cold, or soaking rain. Add mental illness and addiction and the fight to hold on to hope is desperate. Finding joy is a treasure.

joy is a treasure

As I served up bowls today, the conversation around me was lively and fun.

“Three rats came at me in my tent last night. All at once.”
“Three of ‘em?”
“Yes! Three. And you know the rats we have here. They are not little things. They’re chubs. Like big potatoes with legs!”
“What did you do?”
“I threw my backpack at them and they ran away.”

Someone else said, “They eat my food! I always take my rice with me when I leave the tent. Better not mess with a Cajun and his rice!”

A new guy sat at our table today, and as I set his bowl in front of him he said, “My wife would be here to eat today, but she is covered in poison ivy. I mean from head to toe. She is miserable.”

“I have something for her!” I ran to my car where I had one more bottle of poison ivy spray that one of you generous Facebook family sent to me for just this purpose. I made up another bowl of mac and cheese and sent him off with it and the spray and instructions that if it doesn’t get better soon she needs to go ahead to the emergency room where they will give her a shot of steroids. He thanked me and told me she would come to lunch with him tomorrow.

peanut butter and jelly kinda love

I usually prepare enough food for about 25 people, but the amount in the pot and the size of the crowd were not matching up today. As two stragglers arrived, I told them “I’m out of mac and cheese, but I think I might have some peanut butter and jelly in my car.”

(Lucy, my little car, is the modern day version of those wagons the traveling salesmen used to drive from town to town. She holds a little bit of everything. Bug spray, coronavirus masks, hygiene products, food condiments, water bottles, condoms, bandaids—just about anything a person living outside might have need of—again, things that so many of you Facebook friends have handed off to me.)

Sure enough I found one jar of each and started making up sandwiches with the remaining half loaf of bread and the few heels I had set to the side. The stragglers each ate two. Someone said, “If you’ve got enough there, I’d love one of those for dessert.” “Me too!” “Can I have one?” So, battling the flies (who for real fought me for that jelly!), I kept making PB&Js.

communists need love too

One of the ladies who had eaten and left came back around the corner of the house. I asked her if she wanted a peanut butter and jelly. She said, “No. . . . Wait, yes. I don’t usually like peanut butter and jelly, but yes.”

One of the guys who rarely ever speaks up (I’m not sure if he’s shy or if he just doesn’t much like to talk) said, “What? You don’t like peanut butter and jelly? Are you a communist?”
“What? No. I am not a communist. What are you talkin’ about?”
“Well, peanut butter and jelly is about as American as you can get, and if you don’t like it I’m guessin’ you must be an F’ing communist.”
Everyone burst out laughing.

She laughed too and then said, “Yeah. I’m just not big on it. But I’m gonna eat it today because everything tastes better when someone else makes it for you.”

(Insert heart explosion here.)

I laughed. “Well, I’m not cuttin’ it in triangles for you! That’s for sure!”

This. This is what I love to do. My friends who are living outside struggle more than any of us comfortably housed people can imagine. And they are the most resilient people I have ever met. Reality is that life is hard and some days most of the crew is in a downswing, a low place, Our time together at lunch brings some stability and a sense of constancy. Something we can count on. Not only the food, but I hope an experience of no-matter-what kind of love always available. But on the days when we can find the joy, the fun, the lightness in life—those days are a treasure beyond.